


in shadow of your heart (i stayed in the darkness with you)

by biochemprincess



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: F/M, Greek Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 05:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6892222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a myth as old as time, the healer stolen from the face of the earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in shadow of your heart (i stayed in the darkness with you)

**Author's Note:**

> plot bunny! the other chapters will be added in the next few days. 
> 
> title from the lyrics of cosmic love by florence and the machine.

* * *

 

It has to be said, loudly, clearly; that it has never been his choice.

Others have decided for him, tricked him into something he never wanted. And if he had a choice, _a real choice_ in a world where it was on him to decide his fate and not anybody else, if the world wouldn't be thrown out of balance if he left, he would go right now and never turn back.

Immortality is a gift and it's a much worse curse and he wishes, wishes so deeply with everything inside him - heart and soul, if those haven't crumbled to black dust yet over the aeons spent in the darkness - to change his fate.

But Cole knows the role the Moirai have picked for him at the beginning of time and chaos, the strings woven deeply together into the fabric of the universe and there is some kind of mercy n the knowledge of an unchangeable future.

He is darkness and he is hell, ruling fair and just, but underground. They fear him, mortals and gods alike, for he looks into their souls and knows, their lives and fears and sins. He judges and he does so without remorse, because their deeds are not his own.

It is his duty, but not his choice.

 

*

 

Cole doesn't like to leave the Underworld. He is not at home in the world under the clear blue sky, doesn't fit into the world of the mortals he one day - some sooner, some later - has to judge.

But sometimes it is required, people trying to outrun their fate, and he follows the orders, as always. He does his work well, better than the others of his kind, without complaining. The fates have spoken so many centuries ago and he trusts - not trusts, never trusts - but accepts their choices. Negotiations never go well with them anyway, they are too powerful, too unpredictable.

 

*

 

Jennifer sits under a tree, chewing on plums grapes. The wine in the golden cup to her feet smells sickly sweet to his nose. Her eyes are blown dark, but there is a spark of sanity in her alcohol addled state.

She looks up and laughs, loud and out of her belly, as if she has only been waiting for him. "You don't know. You don't know yet what's ahead of you."

"Stop talking." He is not in the mood for her games.

"You don't know yet," she sings. "Because if you did, you would run back to your hell right here, right now."

Cole ignores her, but her last words still ring in his ears as he disappears from her.

"You'll be her ruin."

 

*

 

Her beauty almost knocks the breath out of his lungs and he is the God of the Underworld, the Lord of Darkness, the Unseen.

But there she stands and she shines, in all her glory, her hair the colour of the sun, of spun gold and eyes as blue as the stormy sea. Her hands so small and gentle, yet they shoulder so much, radiate a strength that's made for healing and it's what she does.

Cole is not here for her, just watches from afar, marveling at her grace and power.

He leaves without knowing her name.

She wouldn't want him anyway.

 

*

 

(They trick him.

Once again.

He should've seen, seen it coming, should've known. Rage spreads through his entire body and he destroys a fair amount of his palace in the aftermath, until Ramse stops him.

The other gods are not like him, not damned to carve out a miserable existence in the depths of hell; their powers are blinding them to humanity, to sympathy. The mortals are merely more than bugs to them, an inconvenience. 

And it's not like the wants to be like them, never, but the part of him that wishes he could change his fate, this part wants to rip them apart and throw the pieces into the Tartarus, to burn until the end of time.

"Take a wife." The Pallid Man had sneered, flower petals falling from his hands onto the white marble floors of the Olymp. "I have somebody in mind."

It's a bet, a trap, and he's stepped right into it.

Oh, how Cole hates him.

They know about the blonde healer. The Pallid Man knows Cole would never take somebody not willing to the underworld, not before their time. Olivia laughs at his side.

There are rules, principles - words the other gods neither know nor understand - and he has them to live with himself.

Cole destroys more of his throne room and screams for an eternity, until all ghosts flee.)

 

*

 

"Take her to be your wife." Jones is pragmatic, it's why he's talking to her and nobody else.

"I can't."

"No, you don't want to. There's a difference."

Red leaves are falling from the trees around them. Cole picks one up and it crumples under his touch. "It wouldn't be right," he tries to argue, but fails. She doesn't understand.

Jones looks into his eyes, her own swirling pools of time and space. "He tricked you. It was not your fault and neither is it hers. But you either have to find a way to talk yourself out of this or you have to live with it now. Make the best out of the situation. Find peace."

Cole gazes across her garden they are meeting in, right at the statue of Hannah, the girl with a heart too soft for the divine world of her mother. Jones has suffered enough at the hands of the Pallid Man, considerably more than him. Maybe she does understand.

"Have you?"

 

*

 

He watches her from afar, watches the blood that flows around her, watches as she saves lives; saves lives and fails, saves lives and _succeeds_.

He's selfish and they are right, mortals, calling him the devil, because he is. Cole wishes he had a choice, but he can't let them win, can't let them end him and destroy his realm, destroying everything, the whole world.

(They are immortal, they don't care for the earth or it's inhabitant; they care for their own joy, care about their amusement,  _panem et circenses_.

A flick of his wrist and she would be his ---

Cole waits, waits for her to be alone; despite everything he knows. He still doesn't know her name, but he knows her face and he hopes that maybe his reasons might be enough for her.

A flick of his wrist.

 

*

 

And so the earth swallows them whole.


End file.
